"It's a beautiful hamper," she explained to
Towser. "It truly is--because father says,
it's the inner, not the outer, self that makes
for real beauty, or ugliness; and it certainly
was the inside of that hamper that counted.
I wish you were going, Towser. See here,
suppose you follow on kind of quietly
to-morrow afternoon--don't show up too soon, and
I guess I can manage it."
Which piece of advice Towser must have
understood. At any rate, he acted upon it to
the best of his ability, following the party at a
discreet distance through the garden and down
the road towards the lake; and only when the
halt at the pier came, did he venture near, the
most insinuating of dogs.
And so successfully did Patience manage
it, that when the last boat-load pushed off
from shore, Towser sat erect on the narrow
bow seat, blandly surveying his fellow
voyagers. "He does so love picnics," Patience
explained to Mr. Dayre, "and this is
the last particular one for the season. I kind
of thought he'd go along and I slipped in a
little paper of bones."
From the boat ahead came the chorus.
"We're out on the wide ocean sailing."
"Not much!" Bob declared. "I wish we
were--the water's quiet as a mill-pond this afternoon.
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